Doctors Without Borders closing Haiti hospital for women

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CMC) — Aid group Doctors Without Borders is closing an obstetrics hospital in the Haitian capital that it opened in the aftermath of the devastating January 2010 earthquake.

Chief of mission Michelle Chouinard says the hospital will close in coming days as the last patients are discharged. Another urgent care facility will close next year.

Chouinard said Friday both facilities were never intended to be permanent, but the organization set them up in 2011 and kept them open longer than anticipated because conditions were so dire in the country following the quake.

The 176-bed obstetrics hospital treats about 500 patients per month. About 40,000 babies have been born there since it opened.

Doctors Without Borders will operate four clinics in Haiti after the closures.